If I Could Only Make Believe
by epiphanies
Summary: Dawn thinks. Short and interesting, I think. Sort of revolutionary in a quiet kind of way. Please r/r!


If I Could Only Make Believe

  
  


Time Frame: Season 6, after Doublemeat Palace

POV: Dawn

Just a short little songfic that came to me while listening to the song...

DISCLAIMER: I own naught but the thought! (And maybe not even that much!)

FEEDBACK: yes, please! (It's my catnip!)

  
  
  
  


Rattling. Frustrating.

Terrifying. Writhing.

Twisting. Screaming.

  
  


Dawn Summers awoke with a gasp. Once she realized that she was at home in bed, she caught her breath. Stupid dreams, she muttered. She remembered when her sister always used to have dreams. Dreams of people in old dresses and English accents....and Dawn knew because she read her sister's diary. Every day.

That was why she wasn't as surprised as her mother when Buffy finally explained why she always got in trouble with school and the police. 

Not that she still read Buffy's diary...she had stopped after Angel had left. It had gotten too boring. Plus, she actually wanted to be part of her sister's life. She wanted Buffy to trust her.

But Buffy didn't trust anybody. Except her friends.

Does she know how much she meant to me, Dawn wondered. She ran her fingers through her hair, "Does she know anything about me?"

Dawn could distantly remember those days that she would sit in Buffy's closet and just inhale the scent of her hero.

She hadn't done that for a very long time....but she had started again in the summer. For that scent was the only memory of her sister that she had left.

If she weren't a slayer, mused Dawn, we wouldn't have to be going through all this.

Then we wouldn't have come to Sunnydale....Mom and Dad probably would have stayed together....we would be living the life in LA with no worries other than which dance would we wear our new outfits to.

  
  
  
  


Stars in your eyes little one  
Where do you go to dream  
To a place we all know  
The land of make believe

  
  


Is any of this really real? I mean, I thought that I was real...but the matter really is that I'm just a ball of swirling green energy that's millions of years old. Possibly even billions. So...who's to say what's real?

Shadows tapping at your window  
Ghostly voices whisper  
Will you come and play  
Not for all the tea in China  
Or the corn in Carolina  
Never, never ever

  
  


Buffy died to save the world. Twice. I remember when she came home from the first time...her hair was all matted and she looked like she had drowned. Later, when I read her diary, I realized that she had. It was sort of scary. I don't think I had her world quite in context in my head when I read that, because, just for a moment, I forgot who she really was. I forgot that she had dealt with it all before. After all, I was just a little kid then.

  
  


They're running after you babe

  
  


If I was to go out into this dark night...who knows what would find me? Who knows what danger lurks in Sunnydale at midnight?

Weird thing, though. I'm only fifteen, and I know. I know about the demons, the Oogly Booglies, the horns, fangs and other things that go bump in the night. If I were to go out there, just like Buffy did on her first night here, would I get attacked? Would I have to save my friends from a bunch of vampires in a masoleum? 

No, I wouldn't.

Because my sister is the slayer. Not me.

  
  


Run for the sun little one  
You're an outlaw once again  
Time to change  
Superman will be with us while he can  
In the land of make believe

  
  


But is there really a slayer? Is this the only real world that is true? Or is there an alternate dimension that me and Buffy and mom and dad could live in, as a family? And Buffy could go to UCLA and get an education to become something other than a burger flipper.....

Maybe...if I only start believing that is true...something could happen that could make it true.

Maybe if I only make believe....... if I only look inside of me and see all the things that the Key has seen in it's forever status....

Maybe I could help somehow. Not just be the little girl that is shielded by everyone and everything in her little existence. Maybe I could be a somebody.....

Something nasty in your garden's waiting  
Patiently 'til it can have your heart  
Try to go but it won't let you  
Don't you know it's out to get you  
Running, keep on running

They're running after you babe  
Run for the sun little one  
You're an outlaw once again  
Time to change  
Superman will be with us while he can  
In the land of make believe

Your world is turning from night to day  
Your dream is burning far, far away

Into the blue, you and I  
To the circus in the sky  
Captain Kidd's on the sand  
With the treasure close at hand  
In the land of make believe

In the land of make believe

Run for the sun little one  
You're an outlaw once again  
Time to change  
Superman will be with us while he can  
In the land of make believe

Run for the sun little one  
You're an outlaw once again  
Time to change  
Superman will be with us while he can  
In the land of make believe

(Run for the sun, run for the sun)

I've got a friend who comes to tea  
And no one else can see but me  
He came today, but had to go  
To visit you

  
  


...if I only made believe.

  


You'll never know

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
